Does your child have Pathological Demand Avoidance Syndrome?
All parents will
be familiar with the frustration of trying to pacify a disobedient toddler from
time to time.
However, doctors
have discovered some children have a condition which means they are unable to
cope with any sort of demand.
Little is know
about Pathological Demand Avoidance Syndrome (PDA) at present, but experts
believe the reported numbers of sufferers is just the tip of the iceberg, in a
report by The Times.
'There are so many
children out there with PDA who are not getting the right help,' says
psychologist Phil Christie, Director of Children's Services at the Elizabeth
Newson Centre, where the condition was first defined.
'It is severely
under-diagnosed. We know that around one in 100 children is on the autistic
spectrum, but we don't know yet how many of them have PDA. It is a small but
significant proportion.'
What might be
considered plain naughtiness by most parents, children with PDA essentially have
an in-built need to be in control and to avoid other people's demands and
expectations, which raises their anxiety levels to an extreme extent.
Read More: http://uwillreadnews.blogspot.com/2011/12/has-your...
Top Opinion
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The River Rat 2011/12/18 13:53:12
+7Make up any diagnosis to excuse bad behavior and be able to collect from the health insurance company.
I have PDD NOS (atypical autism) and suspected PDA. And let me tell you, the firmer discipline option *has* been tried on me, and it failed. Throughout Kindergarten to grade 4, I attended a school that believed with enough punishment they could make me a normal child. Instead, my demand avoidance, anxiety and mood problems only intensified while I attended that school. (My second and third schools tried completely ignoring the issue, which wasn't effective either.)
It was only when my parents started unschooling me (a form of homeschooling where the parents support the child's own efforts to learn instead of trying to directly teach the child) that I started getting better. My learning blossomed, my behavior improved, and my tolerance for demands *increased*. Now I'm attending university, which involves a level of demands that would have been impossible for me to tolerate before homeschooling. I still have issues at times, but I'm several years into a psych undergraduate degree, with marks in the 70s and 80s.
The reason why PDA needs to be identified is that the standard solution of firmer discipline *does not* work on these kids. The more demands you plac...
I have PDD NOS (atypical autism) and suspected PDA. And let me tell you, the firmer discipline option *has* been tried on me, and it failed. Throughout Kindergarten to grade 4, I attended a school that believed with enough punishment they could make me a normal child. Instead, my demand avoidance, anxiety and mood problems only intensified while I attended that school. (My second and third schools tried completely ignoring the issue, which wasn't effective either.)
It was only when my parents started unschooling me (a form of homeschooling where the parents support the child's own efforts to learn instead of trying to directly teach the child) that I started getting better. My learning blossomed, my behavior improved, and my tolerance for demands *increased*. Now I'm attending university, which involves a level of demands that would have been impossible for me to tolerate before homeschooling. I still have issues at times, but I'm several years into a psych undergraduate degree, with marks in the 70s and 80s.
The reason why PDA needs to be identified is that the standard solution of firmer discipline *does not* work on these kids. The more demands you place on them, the worse they get. This isn't just a temporary resistance to change thing either - several *years* of consistent discipline for PDA-related behavior problems only makes them steadily worse and worse. These kids react totally differently to discipline than most kids do, and they need a very different kind of handling.
Every time I hear another new /theory/ .. another new /label/ .. another new /term/ ..
I think .. my goodness .. is this for real?
whatever happened to actually telling your CHILD .. the word NO! (and meaning it .. seriously .. NO you can NOT go there .. NO you can not have a treat .. NO Sugar for you .. NO Temper Tantrum won't get that e-toy .. etc)
Time to put the responsibility back where it belongs .. with the PARENTS .. and letting them be PARENTS! When I was growing up .. we'd not even THINK of being disrespectful because we knew that punishment would be quickly following (that spanking or switch would do wonders to deter bad attitude problems .. and we definitely had our manners learned!)
What we are reacting to is the new "excuse" provided. NOT trying to further dishearten a child with a disability or his/her parents. We ALL know someone who uses things like this as a blanket excuse for bad behavior in a otherwise healthy child.
It is great that we live in a day and age that these children are at least sort of understood,and no longer routinely locked up be it in an institution or an attic which was also pretty common.
I am glad to see that you understand that with the story as is it seems a bit......off?....for lack of a better word.
I just knew there would eventually be a name for it in a world that needs to label every odd behavior as a disorder.
(For some reason it keeps turning 'permissive' into 'p...')
They will do it if they had a disease it will be gone after some spanking